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ADDRESS BY HON. W. G. McADOO, SECRETARY OF THE 

TREASURY, 

AT MADISON HIGH SCHOOL, 
MADISON, WIS., OCTOBER 3. 1917. 



Gov. Phillips, Toung ladies, an<l gentlemen : I esteem it a great 
privilege to meet you and to say a few words to you. It is an 
unexpected pleasure, because as I go about tlie country on the im- 
jwrtant mission which the Government has confided to me I find 
that my fate is wrapped up more with grown people than with 
young people, and, being an old person myself. I naturally want to 
get younger, so I am only too glad when I am thrown with the 
younger element. 

,\.s I heard that inspiring song you sang a moment ago with such 
sj)irit and enthusiasm, ni}^ heart swelled aneAv with pride that I an^ 
an American citizen. " On America," that is the cry ; '' On America," 
to save not alone America, but civilization in the world. 

VCe hiive a great task before us, 3'oung ladies and young gentlemen. 
The burden of that task rests upon those who ha^e attained their 
majority, but they are fighting not alone for themselves and for those 
Avho are older than they; they are fighting more for you tlian for 
anybody else. The eyes of a nation must always be to the future, 
and the future of a nation always rests upon the shoulders, as well 
as in the spirit, of the young who are coming on. America's fate 
lies in your hands. "\^liat we transmit to you, you in turn must trans- 
mit to succeeding generations. It is therefore of essential importance 
that the spirit of the Nation sliould always be kept at the highe.st 
elevation, that the ideals of a nation should be of the most superlative 
character, that America's idealism and America's principles should be 
transmitted by us untarnished and as pure as they came to us from 
our noble ancestors whose blood and valor and cburage created this 
great and free democracy. 

It is because that democracy is imperiled, that civilization itself 
has been thrown into the balance by the barbarities of one of the 
greatest and most despotic military powers ever organized upon the 
face of the earth, that noble America, free America, the quintessence 
of the spirit of modern democracy, in the face of a challenge from 

17246°— 17 



the greatest military despotism of all time, is cr.rrying iforA\arsl \\, 
confidence and \\-ith absolute certainty of ultimate A'ictory the banner 
which AAaves over the land of the free and the homes of the brave. 

We want to carry our ideals throughout the world, but while we 
are doing that we want to make America safe for you, for the young 
people, for our children and our children's children. We must be 
animated in this war by the spirit of one of the noblest patriots ever 
produced an American, who gave utterance to the most immortal i 
sentiment ever expressed, that splendid patriot of the Revolution, I 
Nathan Hale, who, when standing in the shadow of an ignominious ^ 
death, condemned by the enemies of his country'' as a spy, said 
proudly : " My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my 
country." That is the sentiment that must pervade America to-day. 
I know it is the sentiment that does pervade America to-day. I 
know it is the sentiment and the spirit of every boy and girl in this 
room. It must be the treasured sentiment of America, the slogan of; 
its citizenship for all time. If we live up to it, America will be 
invincible ! 

And let me say to you that America will never enlist in any cause 
that is not a worthy one. She has never fought except for freedom. 
In 1776 we went to war w4th Great Britain to achieve our inde- 
pendence, and we won it after years of terrible struggles and hard- f 
ships under the heroic Continental Army under the command of that 
greatest of Americans, George Washington. In 1812 we went to 
war again — and for what? To secure the freedom of the seas, a 
right so essential to America's independence and iiational securit}^, 
so absolutely vital to her prosperity as a people, that we could never \ 
surrender that right without fighting to the death for it. That is 
the right that is being challenged in this war by the military despot 
of Europe, the right of America to the free use of the highways of ] 
the world. We can never surrender that right. We must fight for ' 
it if we in America would be safe. We must fight for it if we are 
going to transmit to you young people unimpaired the heritage of 
our forefathers. We must fight for it to vindicate the rules of 
humanity and international law, and while doing that, to restore 
the light of civilization in the world, a light which the barbarities 
of the German Kaiser haA^e practically extinguished. In 1861 we 
went to war again — for what? Again for human freedom. We 
went to war to settle that issue, and again the side which espoused 
the cause of human freedom won. In 1898 we went to war again — i 
for what? Human freedom. We went to war to disenslaA^e op- 
pressed Cuba. We had no motive but an altruistic one. We did not 
ask anything from Cuba. We expended American blood and treas- ^ 
ure to liberate Cuba, and Ave set her up as an independent republic, J 
and she is an independent republic to-day. The seed we planted in \ 

D. Of D. 

^PR I 1918 



(tliP-Jcasr^vi^ihG Cubans has^Borne fruit; the flower of liberty has 
since grown to full blossom, because no sooner had America been 
[drawn into this war against military despotism, the very kind Cuba 
Iliad suffered from and from which we had rescued her, than valiant, 
inoble Cuba instantly declared war against the Kaiser and aligned 
herself with America, the champion of liberty throughout the world. 

Again we are at war — for what? For liberty, for freedom; for 
the right of the smallest nation equally with the greatest to live its 
[own life and to have that life determined by the will of its own 
people; for the freedom of the seas, so that all nations may have 
unmolested intercourse with each other in the peaceful pursuit of 
legitimate commerce. Because our liberties have been challenged and 
our rights as a people have been violated, we are again at war, and 
again we shall win this war for human freedom and universal de- 
mocracy. Those are the things for which we fight; those are the 
things we must accomplish, that we must achieve. 

The greatest sacrifice that any man can make for his country is to 
give his life for his country. It is the supreme sacrifice. We owe 
everything to our brave and glorious men who are now being mar- 
shaled in training camps and prepared for the supreme effort in this 
war. A duty devolves upon us who remain at home. That duty is to 
see that those men are supplied with everything that the great heart 
of America can provide to make them strong in the fight. We must 
support them no matter what the cost to us. If they are willing to 
sacrifice their lives upon the battle field for us, are we who stay be- 
hind unwilling to sacrifice something of our convenience, something 
of our comfort, to give up something that we enjoy every day, in 
order that we may give them more for the fight ? No, ten thousand 
times Xo ! We, the civil population, who stay behind, old and young 
alike, must devote ourselves daily and hourly to the task of saving, 
economizing, and sacrificing comfort, convenience, life itself with 
the same prodigality that our soldiers upon the battle field and our 
gallant tars upon our battleships are willing to make for us. That is 
the duty of the hour. 

Every boy and girl in this room can do a noble part. The Boy 
Scouts and the Girl Scouts of this country have been doing splendid 
work. Let everyone be animated by the thought that every penny 

you save that you would otherwise spend upon pleasure of any kind ■ 

pleasures of dress or of appetite — everything that you save of that 
character and put away for the purpose of investing in these bonds 
of your Government is a direct help to every soldier and sailor who 
is risking his health and all that is dearest to him in this conflict. 
You can all do that much. 

There are other things you can do. You can maintain and uphold 
the American spirit. By your example you can make those who are 



less foitmiatcly sitiiate<l than you iniuibe that spirit a-i...! i , 
part. . 

Oh, my young friends, can you think of what is happening in^ 
Europe now? As you sit here happy, contented, care fre«, without i 
anything to disturb your repose or your comfort, can you think of] 
AA'hat is happening in those desolated homes of Europe, in Belgium, 1 
in France, the horrors, the blackness of- the night there, without foodi 
without fuel in the terrible winters through which thej^ must pass, 
men being blown to atoms by shells, others grievously wounded and 
being rescued by noble women of the Ked Cross, gallant men driving 
ambulances into the jaws of death to drag the wounded from the 
battle jEields and take them to the hospitals Avhere they may receive 
the ministrations of angels of merc3\ Many may be saved; but J 
some will come out sightness, armless, legless, or tongueless, and j 
yet compelled to live ? To live for what ? To live u^wn the satisfac- 
tion alone that they have sacrificed for liberty and civilization in j 
the world. The blackness of niglit is upon Europe — brought there 1 
bv whom? By a militar}'^ autocrat — the Kaiser — Avho brought thi> 
terrible curse upon mankind. Isn't it a reflection on the civilization i 
of this day that any one man should have the power to plunge the ' 
world into this horrible abyss of suffering and disaster ? That i 
the thing — military autocracy — we have got to destroy, because ■ 
democracies are incapable of that sort of thing. Where peoples are ) 
self-governing, where they are free, where they determine their own 
lives they are incapable of the commission of such colossal crimes. • 

Those stricken people in Europe, in the blackness of three years of 
night and suffering, with hope almost destroyed, with the talons of j 
despair clutching at their hearts, are suddenly revived^bj'- what? ) 
A light, this time in the West, instead of in the East. What is it? \ 
America — America to the rescue, holding aloft the torch of liberty 
again, dispelling despair and illuminating the dark recesses of the 
night and bring the assurance of peace to agonized humanity. That ! 
is our mission, a glorious mission for old America and young 
America ; and, by God's help, we shall soon succeed ! 



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